


Misplaced Music

by Rinkafic



Series: Magor 'verse [6]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:38:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marten, a bard, is lost and dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misplaced Music

It seemed to Marten that he had been walking forever. He stumbled and went to one knee, his arms automatically moving to cradle and protect his lute, his prized possession, his livelihood, should he ever find a town again. A bard couldn’t very well sing for his supper if he couldn’t find an audience. Or a supper. 

He knew he was Elsewhere. He had felt the shift when he unwisely tried to use the Gate and had exited through a vast expanse of nothingness. He couldn’t go back, the Gate was gone behind him, and so he had gone forward, hoping to find people. 

The bread from his bag had been gone before he had engaged the Gate. His water had run out soon after he started walking, what had to be days earlier. With no sun or moon to judge time, he had no way of knowing exactly how long it had been since he had eaten. 

This might be the end. He could die out in the vast nothing, with no one to mourn or remark upon his passing. His stomach twisted painfully, clenching to remind him that it was empty. But he had nothing to eat. He could not even fool himself with a bit of water, for that was gone too. Of all the ways he had imagined his death, he had never imagined starvation to be his end. He’d survived wars, he’d crossed battlefields, done battle, lived through plague and fever, outfoxed enemies and thieves, he had even lived through the sinking of not one, but two vessels. A lack of bread was such an inglorious end to such a remarkable career. 

It made him mad. And the anger propelled him for a time, gave him the strength to go on. 

It might be better if he could see something ahead, but there was nothing but this infernal fog of nothing, a blank greyness. He was hungry and he was hopeless. He was also exhausted, without the strength to keep walking. 

Collapsing to his knees, he hugged his arms around his middle. He slid his fingers inside his tunic to rub at the painful cramp. He was alarmed to feel his ribs. Had it been that long since his last meal? 

His mind had started to play tricks upon him, he had started to hallucinate. He had entire conversations with dead relatives. Also, with relatives that were not dead, but were decidedly not with him on his terrible journey towards death. 

He undid the fastenings of the leather bag that held his lute and pulled it out. He lovingly stroked his fingers over the neck, the strings, the body. Rage consumed him once more. He was not without recourse, without power! He was a bard, damn it all, and he would die fighting with his best weapon, his music. 

Crossing his legs, he slid the lute bag over his shoulder to lie against his pack with the rest of his belongings, his harp and his flute were also mighty weapons, but the lute was the extension of his being. If this was to be his last song, it would be the lute that accompanied him.  
He strummed and picked at notes as he composed his verse in his mind. He had learned much through experience. No longer the hapless bard that played at magic, he plotted and planned before opening his mouth, before casting. He rarely used wild magic anymore. The music was tamed to his hand, his heart, his voice.

“I want a way out,” he sang in the language of his mother, the language of the forest. “I beg assistance, for I am small and powerless.” It never hurt to be humble before whatever gods might be listening. “Show me the way to safety, for I am lost and alone and friendless in the nothing.” Even after all these years, he was uncertain whether he worked the magic or the magic worked him, whether it was his will or the will of some benevolent higher power granting him boons for entertaining with his music. 

He felt the magic rise up around him. It was weak, there was nothing to draw on here and his body was drained and dying. He strummed the strings and sang until his vision blurred at the edges and he felt pain overwhelm him. Then he knew no more.

~*~

“I’m telling you, I heard something,” David insisted as he pushed a branch aside and continued walking along the path. Zoe was perched on his shoulder, holding tight to his hair. Lorne tromped after them, carrying the picnic basket. 

“Something like what? Animal something or thunder something? Both of which mean we should turn back and go home,” Lorne complained. When David looked back and scowled at him, Lorne added, “I don’t want to put the baby in danger.”

“Not a baby!” Zoe insisted, sticking her tongue out at Lorne. 

“She’s not a baby,” David echoed. 

Zoe laughed and tugged on David’s hair happily. “Music, Da, music!”

“I hear it sweetling,” David replied. 

Listening intently, Lorne heard it too. “That way,” he pointed when David stopped and looked around. They followed the music until it suddenly stopped. Then kept walking in the direction they had been going.

“Ohhh, Da,” Zoe chirped, her wings fluttering in agitation as she pointed. 

“I’ve got it, stay here,” Lorne said, putting the basket on the ground beside David and walking past him towards the prone figure on the mossy forest floor in front of them. “Alive,” he called, feeling for a pulse. “Barely,” he added as David came forward. Setting aside a stringed instrument on the ground beside him, Lorne had to wrestle several packs off the man’s shoulders in order to roll him over. 

His hair was as white as snow, hanging in choppy layers that reached to his shoulders. His breathing was shallow and his narrow, heart shaped face was sunken, the skin drawn taut. “Starving, I think,” Lorne declared. “Give me the basket, David.” 

“Sic, Um?” Zoe had clambered down David’s arm and was sitting on the moss beside the stranger’s head, her tiny legs crossed as she fingered the long strands of his hair. “Music sick,” she declared, her lower lip jutting out in a pout. “Um, fix him!” she demanded.

“I’ll try, darling, I’ll try, be patient.” Lorne had pulled the water skin from the basket and soaked a chunk of bread in it. He had it pressed to the stranger’s lips, slowly letting the water drip into his mouth. When his tongue darted out and licked up more, Lorne smiled. “That’s it, my friend.” He soaked more bread and repeated the process. 

Putting an arm under his thin shoulders, Lorne raised him up and tipped the water skin to give him a bit more. His eyes fluttered open and he looked at Lorne. “Drink more, you need it,” the magor urged. 

“I’m dead,” he rasped.

“No, you are very much alive.”

“Awake!” Zoe declared, bouncing over to jump up and down excitedly. 

The man smiled and stared at Zoe. “Tiniest fairy ever,” he said, his voice gravelly. 

“Well, she’s still only a baby,” Lorne said.

“Not a baby!” Zoe and David chorused, which made the stranger smile. 

Lorne shook his head, it was an argument he couldn’t win. “She’s a year old.”

The man held his arm out and Zoe fluttered her wings and landed on his forearm, sitting there and staring up at him. “Pretty. Music?”

He was munching on a peice of bread Lorne had handed him. “Maybe later?” he offered after swallowing. “Not at my best, pretty one.” She nodded happily and fluttered up to land on his shoulder, apparently fascinated by his hair. 

“Forgive our daughter’s forwardness, she’s inquisitive,” Lorne said. “I’m Lorne, this is David, and Zoe.”

“Marten. Where am I?”

“Tuska Forest, Southern Province.”

Marten nodded and took a swig of the water. “I see. Lost. My thanks for your timely assist. I thought I was done for.”

“A minstrel?” David asked, having picked up the instrument from the ground to examine it. 

“Bard. I was trying for Wyn Eryi, but I seem to have been misdirected after activating the Gate spell.”

“You tried to use the Gate,” Lorne sighed and shook his head. “Our Gate is beyond repair. It is a wonder you’re alive.”

Rubbing his belly, Marten said ruefully, “Barely, at that. No Gate, you say?”

“No. Not anymore,” Lorne replied.

“Then I’m well and truly lost,” he said with a sad shake of his head. Zone made a cooing sound, purring in her throat and petting Marten’s hair in a consoling manner. He had two choices. HE could lie down there in the moss and die.

Or he could choose life.

He sighed and looked around at his benefactors. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to find my way to a city to earn my way. If you’ll point me to the road?” He stood and lurched sideways into David, who caught him and steadied him.

“Not in your condition,” Lorne sighed, shouldering Marten’s bags and standing. “Come with us, when you’ve regained your strength, we’ll make inquiries.”

Zoe squealed with delight as Marten smiled and nodded. “My thanks. My throat might not be up to singing at the moment, but I can strum something for the little lady while we walk.” He held out a hand for the lute in David’s hands and tuned it, then began to play. 

As they followed the path home, Zoe’s delighted laughter ran out. “She is not going to let him leave,” Lorne said in an undertone to David, who fell into step beside him. 

“I know. I think we just adopted a bard.”

“Did you notice his ears?” Lorne asked.

David nodded. “I did.”

“I think we just adopted an elfin bard.”

 

The End


End file.
